The Jonathan Ross/Russell Brand incident says a lot about the recent histories of Radios 1 and 2. Too much of the stations' public profile is now bound up with unpleasant stuff: the oafish Chris Moyles popularising the pejorative use of the word "gay" and an inexplicable vendetta against a member of Girls Aloud, or Brand and Ross doing what they did 10 days ago. Elsewhere, I don't understand why Jamie Oliver apparently decided his mission to save Rotherham from bad food meant he suddenly had to start liberally using the F-word, or why BBC1's Traffic Cops is such a swear-fest; it bothers me that so much TV - from Spa of Embarrassing Illnesses, through the X Factor and on to Channel Five's surreally sadisticUnbreakable - depends on humiliation and borderline misanthropy. John Harris The Guardian You might have thought a broadcaster on a BBC salary of about £6m a year would understand the existence of an audience, but maybe not. "You don't realise that what you're doing here has a reality outside," says Jonathan Ross, in a studio-based "viddycast" made to accompany Russell Brand's show on Radio 2. Brand, who is said to get a six-figure fee for his once-weekly slot, can only agree with his co-host. "You just think it exists in this context," he says. "You don't realise it affects people's lives." All this was meant to atone for an episode broadcast on October 18 - and, perhaps worryingly, unnoticed until a fuss kicked off over the weekend. In a pre-recorded item apparently signed off by a "senior editorial figure", Brand and Ross were meant to interview the 78-year-old actor Andrew Sachs. Sachs was unavailable, so they filled airtime by leaving messages on his answering machine. Brand claimed to have slept with Sachs' 23-year-old granddaughter, and then off they went: "He fucked your granddaughter!" said Ross, before imagining her "bent over the couch". By way of acknowledging the possible offence caused, they eventually imagined that Sachs might respond by hanging himself. It was ugly, cheap and nasty, and - just to state the obvious - if you own a TV licence, you paid for it. The incident says a lot about the recent histories of Radios 1 and 2. Between the mid-1990s and the early noughties, the former purged itself of the old guard of bland "jocks", while the latter sidelined easy listening and embraced a new edginess. Both networks are still sprinkled with good, popular public service broadcasting: Steve Wright's show on Radio 2, or the attention given to new talent by Radio 1 voices Jo Whiley and Zane Lowe. But too much of the stations' public profile is bound up with much more unpleasant stuff: the oafish Chris Moyles popularising the pejorative use of the word "gay" and an inexplicable vendetta against a member of Girls Aloud, or Brand and Ross doing what they did 10 days ago. There's also a much bigger issue worth discussing. Perhaps the spectral presence of Mary Whitehouse has hung around our discourse on broadcasting for too long, and we also let the Daily Mail's Melanie Phillips and her ilk colonise too much of the argument. Unlike them, I don't conflate sex and violence, or think there's a conversation to be had about broadcasters' approach to religious sensitivities - but agreeing that too much TV and radio is getting ever more coarse and idiotic doesn't strike me as a sop to the authoritarian right. I don't understand why Jamie Oliver apparently decided his mission to save Rotherham from bad food meant he suddenly had to start liberally using the F-word, or why BBC1's Traffic Cops is such a swear-fest; it bothers me that so much TV - from Spa of Embarrassing Illnesses, through the X Factor and on to Channel Five's surreally sadistic Unbreakable - depends on humiliation and borderline misanthropy. I think I know where all this started - in the early 1990s, when the sloughing-off of political correctness began to render generosity of spirit unfashionable. Right now, though, more pressing matters come to mind. Notwithstanding a delayed BBC apology, if harassing a 78-year-old man with claims about his granddaughter's sex life and joking about his suicide doesn't bring the corporation into disrepute, what does? What moral calculus is it that forces presenters who have, say, taken drugs in private to walk the plank, while at the time of writing, Ross and Brand seem to have escaped unscathed? And over in west London, how will this sit with the people who hold the line against those who'd have us believe that the licence fee is an outrageous indulgence? As the row over Russell Brand and Jonathan Ross's obscene telephone calls to Fawlty Towersactor Andrew Sachs rumbles on - they have had to apologise after leaving messages on his voicemail saying Brand had slept with his granddaughter - details about the young woman at the centre of the storm, Georgina Baillie(pictured), have emerged. The Times reports that Georgina, 23, is a member of the Satanic Sluts Extreme, a dance troupe who describe themselves as "four of the sexiest depraved London jezebels", who perform "violent, horrific and sexy burlesque shows". Baillie's stage name is "Voluptua". This rather racy persona is abetted by the fact she has posted images of herself on social networking websites in provocative poses and describes herself as a "swinger", who dances in a cage at a nightclub. And it transpires that last week was not the first time Georgina has been the subject of Brand's BBC Radio 2 show. David Baddiel, the comedian and author, who co-hosted Brand's programme for a week, recounted on air how he encountered Baillie at Brand's home. "So I came round. You were in your pants, yellow Y-fronts. You opened the door in a sort of headmaster's cape, which was a bit weird. I said, 'They're still here, aren't they?' You said, 'They're still here.' "So we went upstairs to your study, and the Satanic Sluts every so often would come up and say, 'Russell, have you finished?' And you would say, 'No, no, it's fine', meaning, 'Can you stay here because I shall be visiting you later?' "The key moment for me was one of the Satanic Sluts said to me that her grandfather was Andrew Sachs... She said, 'Oh don't tell him I was here'. I thought, 'That's not going to happen, is it? I'm not going to ring up Manuel and say, 'Guess where I saw your grand-daughter?'" The recent controversy began on October 18 when Ross and Brand, two of the BBC's highest paid stars, attempted to telephone Sachs for an arranged interview but were answered by his voicemail service. Brand told listeners: "What Andrew doesn't know is, I've slept with his granddaughter." As he left a message for the actor, Ross, 47, shouted: "He fucked your granddaughter." The BBC received more than 1,500 complaints from listeners. Georgina, who cut short her European tour with the Satanic Sluts, appears to be relatively calm about the matter. She said: "I know something has happened, but I don't want to say anything more until I've had a chance to speak to my agent." Sensible girl.bbc bias prejudice bent ?
Our coarse Auntie
Full article: Our idiotic, coarse Auntie 
Our idiotic, coarse Auntie
Ross and Brand's oafish style defiles the airwaves, and to say so is no sop to the authoritarian right
The girl behind the Brand/Ross row
Tuesday, 28 October 2008
bbc bias prejudice bent ?
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